


Many Waters

by VR_Trakowski



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: F/M, reposted, so if that's not your thing skip this one, this involves a dive emergency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24584920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VR_Trakowski/pseuds/VR_Trakowski
Summary: Though the waters overflow me...
Relationships: Gil Grissom/Sara Sidle
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in 2005. 
> 
> Grateful acknowledgement is hereby made to SSG K. Wolfskill, Sam&Alan, and [Cincoflex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cincoflex), divers all, who made sure that what I was describing was possible. So much of a writer's strength lies in the people one knows!

The brilliant, wavering flash of light made every hair on Sara's body stand on end-not an easy thing, considering that she was wearing a heavy coating of neoprene. It was also tremendously alarming. Without a second thought, she abandoned her push towards the blurry shape above and ahead, and went down instead, as fast as possible.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another dive light taking roughly the same path, trying to get away from the surface. _Guess the storm came on faster than we thought._

Automatically, Sara headed towards the crime scene with strong pushes of her legs. The wrecked yacht was invisible in the black water of Lake Mead, but the buoy rope anchored to it held a number of cold chemical lights to guide the divers, and she caught the gleam of the deck rail in the beam of her handlight. The polished brass was scarred in places from the explosion that had sunk the boat, and Sara knew that in a day or so algae would begin to cloud its smoothness.

Sara let her feet touch down on the deck of the half-capsized yacht and settled in to wait for a bit. If the storm was flinging lightning down to the lake's surface, she didn't want to be anywhere near it. _I just hope the launch doesn't get hit._ If the crew had any sense, they were hightailing it towards shore and shelter.

_Such a mess._ And Sofia would have an I-told-you-so on her lips when Sara made it back up top, but - Sara had to admit - it would be at least in part deserved. Evidence was time-sensitive, yes, and the police dive team was temporarily decimated by the flu, but diving at night in the face of a thunderstorm was not exactly a tame stunt.

Sara looked back in the direction of the launch, though the water was far too dark for her to see it even if it was still there. The dive light she'd seen earlier was approaching slowly, the diver still hidden in the blackness. _Only one - I guess the others made it back up to the boat._

It had been a scramble. At first it was only Sara and the one healthy police diver, but after they were already down three more divers appeared, anonymous in their masks and gear, and the five of them swam in and out of the wreck, processing what evidence they could in the cold and the harsh lights brought down from above. And then they'd headed for the surface…she had been the last to leave, even the big lights had been taken back up.

Now Sara watched the light approach with idle curiosity. She had plenty of air - she'd changed tanks in mid-process - and the water was cold but not freezing. She could wait at a safe depth for a little while the lightning passed. _Better that than getting fried at the surface._ She snorted silently. _It could be worse. Warrick said that in Miami they had somebody standing by with a rifle in case of alligators._

Grissom was going to be livid, though, she thought. It had been some years since she'd had the time to dive for fun, but Sara was still certified, and while she wasn't entirely sanguine about a night dive in unfamiliar waters, she couldn't just let the evidence be lost to current and fish while they waited for more divers to arrive.

Not that that was going to count for much when her supervisor heard about this.

The owner of the dive light finally neared, not that Sara could see anything distinctive down here in the dark. A handlight flashed on and was tipped up to the diver's face, revealing enough features that she could tell that it wasn't the other female diver. The man waved, and then gestured at the wreck, and Sara would have grinned if it wouldn't have dislodged her regulator. _My thoughts exactly._

She turned on her own light to signal her agreement and followed the man as he swam slowly down into the yacht's main cabin, the beams of their lights illuminating swirls of silt and the sudden faint gleam of brass fittings. The boat was ridiculously large for the size of the lake, a rich man's toy, and Sara had found it distinctly odd to swim down its tiny corridor and float around its cabins as though in midair. Fortunately for the processing, there were no corpses per se, though when she and the police diver had first reached the wreck they'd disturbed a school of fish feeding on a leg lodged under the wheel.

The leg was gone topside now, sealed in an evidence bag minus fish, and while a few piscines still lazed around the wreck, they fled as the lights touched them.

The two of them made their way through the wreck in a wordless ballet, checking and rechecking to make sure that all the evidence that could be collected had been, and ended up in the narrow galley. The boat lay mostly on its side among the rocks of the bottom, giving everything their beams caught a somewhat cockeyed look, and there was barely room for the two of them, even using three dimensions.

The ripple against Sara's skin warned her, and adrenaline flooded her as a muffled groan reached her ears. She twisted expertly around to face back the way they came, sparing one quick glance to make sure the other diver was following her, and the two of them shot back towards the deck as the wreck shifted around them.

The vibrations in the water made it hard to stay on course. Sara hit the wall of the short staircase as she swam upwards, and lost her stroke; the groan swelled, and a hand on her bottom propelled her forward with a strong shove as the yacht slid off balance and folded in on itself.

The push got her into the clear. Sara whirled in the water, kicking up and away from the cloud of sand and mud rising from the sagging yacht, bringing her handlight around to try to spot her companion in the murk.

All she saw was a fury of bubbles.

_Shit!_

She doubled down again, heedless of the blinding particles, trying to see something, anything. The doorway of the stairwell had vanished, there was only a tangle of wood and metal left, with those bubbles still rushing up from it. _No, no, no!_

Something moved at the edge of the beam. She grabbed at it through the cloud, and it grabbed back - a hand, protruding from the tangle. Sara kicked closer, not letting go, prying at the trap from which the arm protruded, but it was beyond her strength. She lifted her light and shone it into the mangled stairwell, and a face stared back, wide Plexiglas-masked eyes half-obscured by the murk, mouth open.

Mouth open. Regulator gone. And, judging by the bubbles, the diver's tank was punctured anyway.

The eyes blinked, but only a few silvery spheres escaped the mouth, and her mind went into overdrive. _He hasn't panicked. Yet. Don't you panic either, Sidle -_

She'd never had to do this for real before, but this was the reason for practice. Sara took the prescribed deep breaths, and pulled her own regulator from her mouth, extending it towards the trapped man.

It didn't reach.

She shouldered forward, straining, but her own tank kept her from getting close enough. She could hear the dull clonk as it banged against the metal above.

Another few bubbles escaped the man's mouth. Sara jammed the mouthpiece back between her teeth and shrugged out of the tank, desperately trying to control her panting.

But the opening was still too narrow. _Dammit!_ She could pass the tank through, or she could pass her arm, but not both at once - and the man's arms were trapped. He could not lift the regulator to his own mouth.

He blinked again, and Sara could see his eyes glazing. _No. No you will not!_

They covered this sort of situation in the classes too, though she'd never practiced it. Sara took another couple of quick lungfuls, then ducked her head into the opening, pushed forward, fumbled to grab the man's chin, and sealed her mouth over his. Upside down, so their masks would not block them.

They lost half the air in that first frantic press, but she felt his lungs sucking the oxygen from hers, and rejoiced. Evidently he remembered his classes too, because he didn't fight her as she pulled away, and she pushed back to her tank and took another two breaths before returning to him.

Sara repeated the actions twice before she was sure the diver's oxygen level had evened out, then fumbled for the cold light at her waist and cracked it, hooking it into a bit of the wreckage so it cast a greenish glow over his face.

It was a slow pattern, a cold and terrifying one in the foggy dimness, but he tasted of mint and male and impossible calm, and after she gave him his third breath she managed to smile at him.

He smiled back through the mist, eyes crinkling behind the facemask, and she nearly lost her own lungful of air as her mind finally put the pieces of his face together.

_Grissom._

Old training held; Sara continued the routine of breathe, push, breathe, retreat, even as her brain scrambled to catch up. She hadn't known that Grissom was certified to dive, but when she thought about it, it made sense; he grew up on the water, and he was relentless in his pursuit of evidence. He would probably consider diving a perfectly logical skill for a CSI.

Another push, another press, the sensation of his lips against hers a double strangeness now that she knew who he was. Sara wondered wildly if he knew _her_ identity. Sofia had no doubt told him that Sara had gone down, when he'd arrived, but the other female diver was slender as well, and in the dark water they were all but indistinguishable. For all Grissom might know, she was a stranger.

But on the next retreat, she met his eyes, and saw the knowledge in them. He knew exactly who she was.

There was nothing either of them could do, she realized; they couldn't even communicate. They could only go on, she giving, he accepting, and both of them - she guessed - counting seconds in their heads. This method of transfer was only meant to be temporary; they lost a small amount of air with every exchange, and a tank that held plenty for her would run out much faster divided between them.

It was a toss-up, Sara figured, between her tank and the storm. She had no doubt that the divers would return in search of them as soon as it was remotely safe, but the lightning could pass in five minutes or take forty, and in the meantime every breath was a risk for Grissom. If he choked or inhaled water, there would be no helping him.

Sara exhaled again into his mouth and pulled back for another couple of breaths. Grissom's eyes were clear for the moment, and he smiled again, but she knew he was getting less oxygen than he needed. Sooner or later he would start to get dizzy. She didn't _think_ he would panic, but she couldn't be sure.

_If they don't get back in time…_ Sara didn't want to finish the thought. If the divers didn't return before her tank hit the red, she would have to abandon Grissom, knowing that before she broke surface he would drown in the wreckage.

Her jaw tightened on the mouthpiece. _That's not going to happen._

Breathe, push, exhale, retreat. Over and over. It became a ritual of sorts, as though it was the only thing they had ever done. Her mind kept going around in circles; if only the regulator would reach, she could try to swim around the wreck and see if she could free him, but it would not reach. Fear told her to search anyway, to take a few extra seconds; reason warned her not to burn their precious air any faster with exertion.

Breathe. Breathe. Push. How odd, to kiss him like this, upside down in the dark and the cold, and a wild humor rose up in her at the thought that not only could he not refuse her kisses now, he took them eagerly. Most of her concentration was taken up making sure that each press of her mouth was as air-tight as possible, but she kept track of it, this feeling, the taste of him, cold lips and warm breath and the life passing between them.

He kept smiling at her. Encouragement, thanks? She couldn't tell. But she would smile back, both of them letting their spent air trail up and away, time measured in tiny gleaming spheroids. In breaths. In rhythm. The rhythm kept her going, kept her thoughts from spiraling towards despair, towards _what if they **don't** get back here in time?_

She was getting chilled. Lake water wasn't warm at the best of times, but swimming had kept her comfortable before; now her body heat was leaching away. She took a closer look at Grissom. The cold light did peculiar things to colors, and Sara couldn't tell if his lips were getting blue. She couldn't even see enough of him to tell if he was starting to shiver.

_He's got more body mass_ was countered by _he could be hurt, in shock._ His gaze was still strong, but the light picked out the creases around his eyes, lines that were deepening as his strength ebbed. _Come on, guys, we don't have a lot of time here._

Breathe. Breathe. Push, connect. She felt a vibration against the hand that gripped his chin, as though he were trying to force words through the heavy water, but there was no time for anything but his inhale, even if she could hear through her mouth.

After ten more breaths, she checked her dive watch. The amount of time that had passed shocked her; it seemed both too little and too much. After the next exchange, she used her handlight to read the gauge on the tank, and her remaining body heat seemed to flow out of her.

There was almost nothing left.

Sara schooled her face to calm, remembered to smile as she pulled out the mouthpiece and moved back to Grissom, but when she retreated again she saw that she had not fooled him. His eyes narrowed, and when she ducked again, something caught her floating hair.

She stopped, reached up to untangle it, and the snag grabbed her fingers. Grissom's hand, still protruding from the wreckage. When she shone her light on it, the fingers waved to get her attention, and as she watched, his forefinger described a spiral, and a circle. A spiral, a circle.

Sara frowned, confused, and glanced in at Grissom's green-lit face, but he frowned back and nodded as best he could, and made the gestures again. Spiral, circle. And then he pointed his forefinger up, and she understood.

_Go._

Sara held back the yell. Neither rage nor terror nor sheer incredulity would serve her now. Instead, she pushed in to give him his next breath, and when she retreated she shook her head firmly.

Grissom frowned more deeply, and even under the mask she could see the stern supervisor. She held up one hand, fingers spread. _Five minutes._

He could scarcely argue with her, Sara realized, but she saw his lips moving slightly as she pulled back from their next kiss, and Sara realized he was counting seconds.

Frustration and a little of that hysterical amusement hit her. He didn't trust her to tell him when five minutes was up - and he was right to doubt.

Sara knew, and knew that Grissom did also, that at forty feet or so of depth one was supposed to stop once on the way up to decompress, but also that they weren't deep enough to cause serious injury if an emergency required an immediate surfacing. If she had to, Sara could drop her dive belt and be at the top within seconds. She wondered with a tinge of despair whether Grissom feared that she would run out of air on the way up, or whether he just didn't want her to watch him drown.

_Too bad._ Seeing him die before her eyes would be an unsurpassable horror, but there was simply no way that she was going to leave him before absolutely all hope was gone, even if it meant nightmares for the rest of her days.

She would not leave him to die alone in the dark.

Breathe. Push. Breathe. Retreat. Grissom's eyes were less focused, whether due to shock or lack of oxygen, and Sara pinched his cheek with numb fingers to keep him alert. His glare was welcome, even if he did start counting again.

_Come on, guys. Come on! We need a little help here -_ Breathe. Breathe.

She was starting to feel light-headed, despite the regulator in her mouth, when she saw Grissom's lips stop moving. Sara ducked in, expecting him to be foggy again, but instead she saw that his eyes were clear, and when she pressed her mouth to his, his lips did not unseal.

Shocked, she raised her head. Grissom's gaze held hers, held it, his eyes had never been so intense...and then a slow line of bubbles began to stream from the corner of his mouth, and she lost half her own air in a wail. She reached for him, desperate, but before her hands touched his face something jerked her back, hard. The back of her head smacked into the wreckage, and with a burst of light and pain, everything vanished.


	2. Chapter 2

The memory was a vile one. Choking, coughing, spitting, her head ballooning with agony, flashing lights and shouting voices and the nastiness of wet sand all over her skin. Sara pushed it away for the nth time and tried to savor the hush of the anonymous little chapel.

It was just as well that she couldn't remember much, she decided, running a hand gingerly over the tender spot on the back of her skull. Nothing about surfacing or expelling the water from her lungs had been pleasant, and when she'd lost her tenuous grip on consciousness in the ambulance she'd been relieved.

Her throat and lungs were still a little sore, partly from the dry gas in her tank and partly from nearly drowning, but aside from that and a bumped head she'd come out fairly well.

Unlike - 

Sara sighed, and checked her watch. It was almost time; she might as well.

She pushed to her feet, still a little stiff, and walked out into the corridor. She'd never been to the room, but she knew the number by heart.

Reluctance dogged Sara's steps as she neared the door. This was not going to be easy. But she lifted her chin and turned the knob.

Grissom looked asleep, eyes with their long lashes shut, face serene. Sara slipped into the room and shut the door quietly behind her, never looking away from him. She paced silently up to his still form, hands clenching with the desire to smack him, shake him, do _something_ to break that stillness.

Unable to bear it, Sara whirled away at last, feeling her nails denting the skin of her palms. She stared at the corner of the room, hearing the rush of rain outside the small window, trying to get herself under control. Screaming was frowned upon here.

His voice was hoarse and raspy, but the word was clear. "Sara."

She turned back, watching as Grissom fumbled for the controls to his bed and moved himself into a sitting position. One hand was encumbered by an IV line, and his face was pale and drawn from pain and pneumonia, but his eyes were bright. "I'm glad you're here."

That did it. One simple comment, a phrase she'd never heard from him before, overflowed the brimming cup of her rage.

_"You…fucking…idiot!"_

Grissom's eyes widened, but she could barely focus on him through the haze of fury. "What the hell were you _thinking?_ Was that some kind of stupid nobility, trying to kill yourself? Did you really think it would make me _leave_ you down there?" She sucked in air. "You didn't even know how much air was left in the tank! You - you - "

She choked on rage and tears, and covered her face with her hands, angrier still that she had lost control. "You almost died," she spat, not caring that the words were muffled by her palms. "If you'd waited just one more minute, you would have been fine! Where do you get off thinking - you - "

She ran out of invective, and swiped viciously at her eyes, struggling to push back the tears. Humiliation burned in her chest; she'd meant to be cool and distant and polite, but once again she'd given him control. _It never fails. You are such a wimp, Sidle._

Grissom sighed, and Sara made herself look at him, expecting either that infuriating patience or his blank expression. But instead his face was soft, wistful. "You're right."

She twitched, not quite certain she'd heard correctly. "What?"

"You're right," Grissom repeated. He cocked his head a little. "Come here."

Sara all but choked again. "I - " she said, and stopped, her tangle of emotions robbing her of words.

"Come here." He gestured at the chair next to the hospital bed. "Sara, please."

If he'd spoken in that gentle tone at almost any time before, she would not have been able to deny him, but now Sara eyed him, suspicious and still stinging with embarrassment and anger.

Grissom arched a brow when she didn't move. "I will," he said more firmly, "get out of this bed and come over there if you don't come _here,_ Sara. And I'm told it wouldn't be medically advisable."

_Oh, you bastard._ She glared at him, but he'd chosen the one ploy that would work, because Sara had no doubt that he would do just that if she didn't comply.

Slowly, stiff with reluctance, she took the chair, trying to push it back from the bed without being obvious, but it stuck on an uneven bit of tile and she chose to preserve her shredded dignity and leave it.

Grissom looked down at her hands, tightly folded together and placed precisely in her lap, and then glanced away, pursing his lips the way he did when he was searching for words. Sara said nothing. _He gets two minutes. Then I am so out of here._

"I'm not going to apologize for trying to get you to leave me, Sara," he said eventually, looking back to her face. "Under the same circumstances, I'd make the same decision. But I do apologize for trying to...to _force_ you to leave. That was wrong." He let out a breath, shrugging a little. "I should have trusted you."

"Yes, you should have," Sara replied stonily, though her anger was melting at his words even as she tried to shore it up.

For the first time since she'd walked in, she really looked at him. The returning divers had managed to keep Grissom from drowning and had freed him from the wreck, but it had been a close thing; the collapsing boat had cracked three of his ribs. Sara's lungs had filled with water when an overzealous diver had pulled her back too hard and knocked her out against the wreck, but she'd been whisked topside and the water had been pushed out in short order. Grissom's heart had stopped twice on the way to the hospital thanks to shock and water in his lungs.

He looked...still sick, she had to admit. Injury and illness had made him lose weight, and his cheeks were hollow. His beard was fuller than usual, since he still wasn't up to trimming it himself, but in Sara's eyes it suited him.

His jaw shifted. "I just...I couldn't stand the thought of seeing you drown right along with me," he said quietly.

Sara's throat constricted, and she turned her head to look blindly out the window of the little private room. Rain streaked the glass. "I wasn't going to _let_ you drown," she said, berating herself for the childishness of her words even as she said them.

She heard the mattress creak, and then his hand was surrounding hers, gently prying one free of the other when she did not move. "I know. I should have trusted your stubbornness."

Oh, her heart was squeezing at his touch, even though she kept her fingers from lacing with his. "It was almost...like a dream," he said thoughtfully, and when she looked back to him he was staring at the blanket covering his legs. "Like getting caught in the jaws of some leviathan. It's not often a man gets to contemplate his own mortality so suddenly - and live to tell the tale."

His thumb stroked over the back of her hand, which had somehow migrated to the edge of his bed without Sara's noticing. "I couldn't move at all. The light was gone, my air was gone."

Grissom's voice was calm, if still hoarse, but she noticed suddenly that his fingers were trembling slightly, and with that realization her turmoil eased somewhat. Trying to soothe, she let her fingers slip between his, and felt him grip a little tighter.

"I thought I was dead, Sara, and then you appeared, and gave me back my life. Over and over again."

That did it. Sara closed her eyes briefly and swallowed hard, her anger dissolving into nothing despite her attempt to keep it. "I couldn't do anything else. You know that," she said, her own voice a little rough.

He nodded. "And you would have done it for anyone. I know that too." His fingers tightened more, and she didn't speak the protest on her lips. "It was when I saw your face - "

The words choked off, but she knew when he meant - those last horrifying seconds when he'd let his air go. Grissom's face was stark as he turned to her again. "I should have trusted you," he repeated.

Her traitorous fingers wanted to touch his face again, to relearn the curve of his chin and the softness of his throat, so Sara curled them tightly on themselves. "It's over," she forced herself to say. "You're safe. You survived."

Grissom nodded reluctantly, and for a few minutes they were silent. The only movement was his thumb still rubbing her hand, as though he couldn't help himself, as though he wanted to make sure every second that she was real.

"I survived," he agreed at last, "but it was because of you." A hint of a smile touched his mouth, strained and shy. "In some cultures, the saving of a person's life means that the life then belongs to the one who saved it."

"Mm," Sara acknowledged, slightly baffled by this trivia tangent. _Must be his way of pushing away the topic -_

Grissom looked down at their joined hands, and turned them over, releasing hers and spreading out her fingers so that her open palm lay in his. His lips pursed a little. "It's a delicate thing, a life," he remarked, eyes still lowered. "But I trust you."

The meaning of his words crashed in on her all at once, and Sara's head snapped up, their gazes locking. _He can't be serious._

But she saw a reflection of her own wild speculation, her own...need. Years' worth of denial was ricocheting through her head, but she flashed back to the cold and the dark and the pressure, and their fragile little miracle. _We've already done the impossible this week,_ a silent voice said with crazy humor. _What's one more?_

The enormity of choice suddenly wasn't enormous, it was just right. Sara wrapped her fingers around his and tugged the slightest bit, and Grissom leaned forward. His lips were a little chapped and his breath still bore the tang of illness, but it didn't matter in the slightest, because his kiss was what should have been all along, a caress and a promise and a giving. Sara's heart squeezed so tightly that it hurt, and then the bands loosened and warmth took over everything, and she put her free hand to his cheek and kissed him back, back, back.

After a while they were looking at each other again, breath coming fast, neither of them paying attention to the awkward seating arrangements. "That's one I owe you," Grissom said, and Sara felt her brows go up.

"One?"

He - smirked, was the only word for it, and leaned forward once more until his lips brushed her ear. The number he whispered into it made her pull back in surprise. "I counted," he said simply, and a sob and a laugh fought it out in her throat.

"Only you," she managed at last, and his smile softened.

"That's only the beginning," he promised, and took another one off the tally.

Slowly.

"Grissom," she murmured at last, seeing how the lines of his face were deepening again, "you need to rest."

He sat back a little, his smile fading, his fingers tightening on hers. "Don't go yet."

As if she could. "I'll stay," Sara promised. Grissom nodded, but she could see the uncertainty there, and with sudden confidence she stood.

Her shoes went on the floor as he watched, and then she slid onto the bed, leaning back against the headboard. Discussion wasn't needed; without words, Grissom lay down, resting his head in her lap. It was a rather bony lap, she thought, but that didn't seem to bother him.

He captured her hand in his once more, tucked them both under his chin, and let out a sigh that combined weariness and contentment and made her eyes prickle. Sara let herself touch him, buried her fingers in his hair and stroked, and he sighed again and fell asleep almost at once, his weight going limp against her.

She settled her shoulders more comfortably against the headboard, letting the stillness spread, and listened to the rain.


End file.
